"What sort of a country is this," said the one to the other, "that is unknown to all the world, and in which Nature has everywhere so different an appearance to what she has in ours? Possibly this is that part of the globe where everything is right, for there must certainly be some such place. And for all that Master Pangloss could say, I often perceived that things went very ill in Westphalia." CHAPTER XVIII. What they saw in the Country of El Dorado. CACAMBO vented all his curiosity upon his landlord by a thousand different questions: the honest man answered him thus: "I am very ignorant, sir, but I am contented with my ignorance; however, we have in this neighbourhood an old man retired from Court, who is the most learned and communicative person in the kingdom." He then carried Cacambo to the old man; Candide acted now only a second character, and attended his valet. They entered a very plain house, for the door was nothing but silver, and the ceiling was only of beaten gold, but wrought in so elegant a taste as to vie with the richest. The antechamber, indeed, was only incrusted with rubies and emeralds; but the order in which everything was disposed made amends for this great simplicity. The old man received the strangers on his sofa, which was stuffed with humming-birds, feathers, and ordered his servants to present them with liquors in golden goblets; after which he satisfied their curiosity in the following terms:-- "I am now one hundred and seventy-two years old; and I learnt of my late father, who was equerry to the king, the amazing revolutions of Peru to which he had been an eyewitness. This kingdom is the ancient patrimony of the Incas, who very imprudently quitted it to conquer another part of the world, and were at length conquered and destroyed themselves by the Spaniards. |
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